


if i could tell him

by MaddieandChimney



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Buckley siblings childhood fic, But snapshots into the Buckley siblings, Gen, little Maddie, little buck, mentions of 404 canon spoilers, mentions of a fire, mentions of child death, played around with their ages a little to make it work a little better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29316009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: The five times Maddie almost told Buck about Daniel and the one time she had no choice.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley
Comments: 17
Kudos: 69





	if i could tell him

Maddie had always promised herself she’d be as good a big sister to Evan, as Daniel had been a big brother to her. She’s not allowed to talk about him, she can feel herself already starting to forget by the time it’s been two years. She was seven when he had died, Evan was only two… he’d never have any memories of the eldest Buckley sibling. He’d never remember the blonde haired, blue eyed,  _ always _ smiling, forever ten year old. He’d never remember Daniel trying to teach them how to swim in the family pool, he’d never have the memories of laughter at the dinner table or of Daniel starting a food fight on Evan’s second birthday when the toddler had thrown a piece of cake at their dad. 

There was nothing. Daniel had died and he had taken their parents with him that day and Maddie felt as though he’d taken a piece of both her and their little brother with him, too. She wanted to protect him, in the way she couldn’t be because the memories were there and they were crushing. A part of her feels jealous that he will never remember the loss, he will never feel that missing piece of their family… the piece that seemed to make them a family. Now, it’s just her and Evan and he looks at her as though she’s his whole world and at nine years old, it’s a lot to put on just one person but… everyone is hurting. That’s what her grandparents told her before their parents had packed up their car and left New York behind for Hershey. It won’t hurt forever, she can remember her grandmother smiling, tears shining in her blue eyes before Maddie never saw her again. 

Two years feels like a lifetime and to Evan, it’s  _ half _ his life. Half of his life has been spent not knowing why his mom cries when she holds him, or why his dad keeps shouting at every little thing he does. 

Maddie smiles as she looks at the four year old, gently poking his nose with her finger when she sits across from him, “It’s okay, it won’t hurt forever.” She promises him, repeating the same words she had heard from the woman she missed so much. When her parents had made the decision to take them from the only home they had ever known, they’d lost everyone who had come with it. There was nothing… no phone calls, no visits, no summers spent in New York, no Christmases as a family. It’s as though all the joy in their home and in their family, died that day and even at her age, she can’t help but feel selfish for wanting her parents back, for wanting her older brother back. He always knew how to make her smile. 

Big, blue eyes, so much like Daniel’s look at her, tears filling them as his bottom lip quivers, as her fingers gently brush along his birthmark, “I’ll buy you a cake with my allowance.” She promises him, “Mom and dad didn’t mean to forget your birthday. They’re just…  _ really _ sad.” 

“Why?” 

She sighs, her eyes wandering around the living room, remembering how all the photographs of her brother had apparently been burnt in the fire, except the one she had hidden in her bedroom. Her parents had made it clear they didn’t want to talk about him, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t try and explain to her little brother, right? She gulps down the lump in her throat, “Well, it’s not just your birthday, today, it’s also the day that... “ The nine year old scrambles for the right words to say to try and help him understand that he’s not the problem and it’s not his fault but even she struggles with the idea. As though somehow they shouldn’t have been left behind. “Today is also the day that Dan--”

“Maddie!” The harsh hiss of her mother’s voice sounds through the room, causing Maddie’s back to stand up straight, her eyes wide before she snaps her head towards the woman. Her face, a dark shade of red, her eyes burning with rage and unshed tears before she shakes her head, “Get in the kitchen. Now.” Maddie can feel her bottom lip trembling, already having a sense of the kind of trouble she’s in before she stands, brushing her fingers through her brother’s curls as she does, refusing to let the tears fall when she looks at her mother. 

“Now!”

.

Ten year old Maddie looks at her brother, leaning up against the doorway of his bedroom, a small smile on her face, “It’s your birthday next week,” She finally says, “do you know what you want?” 

His face lights up and she both loves and hates how he seems to forget how disappointing the year before was, getting his hopes up with each passing year as though somehow… things will be different. It’s been three years since their brother died, three years since their whole lives had taken a different path and she wishes she had her brother’s innocence and hope. She’d given up the day he had been scolded in the kitchen and forced to make a promise she didn’t know how to keep. They said it was to protect Evan from the pain, from the knowledge that he had survived when their brother hadn’t. But what about her pain? Why couldn’t she talk about the person she had spent her entire life loving, right up until the day he had been taken from them? 

Any utterance of his name, or mention of New York or their life  _ before _ was met with a glare from her parents. She doesn’t understand why they don’t want to share the good memories they must have of Daniel, why they don’t want to share him with the youngest member of their family so maybe… maybe it’ll be easier for him to understand why their mom cries on his birthday every year or why their dad refuses to play baseball with him (it was his and Daniel’s thing). 

“A baseball glove.” He finally settles on, as though he can read her thoughts and she gulps, holding back the tears she longs to cry, wishing she could be stronger for him. 

Maddie gives him a sympathetic smile, “Maybe you should try another sport.” 

“But I like that one.” 

“I know but…” She trails off, the words dying in her throat, memories of Daniel and her dad playing baseball in the garden, of her mother shouting at them to be careful, with a smile on her face and a light in her eyes that had disappeared that day. Maddie takes a step into his bedroom, “I’m not very good at baseball, maybe you should find something we can do together.” 

Slowly, he nods his head, his lips out in a pout, unshed tears in his eyes as he tries to hide his disappointment and it breaks her heart. He’s five, he should be allowed to feel  _ disappointment,  _ he should be allowed to play baseball if that’s what he wants, “Basketball?” Her nose scrunches up but she nods her head anyway, forcing a smile onto her lips. 

“Basketball it is.” 

. 

Maddie is quick to sit up in bed and try and wipe the tears that have fallen down her face with her sleeve, knowing the patchy redness of her skin will give her away in seconds, even to her six year old brother. He’s five years younger than her but he still has this fierce protectiveness within him that she remembers from what seems like another life. He’s identical to their brother in every way other than the birthmark above his eye. The eyes are the same, their smiles, their curly, blonde hair. She can see the pain in her parents' faces every single time they look at him, all she feels is joy that even if Daniel can’t be on the earth with them, at least they have Evan. 

“Why are you crying? It’s meant to be your birthday.” 

Maddie can remember how fun birthdays used to be in the Buckley household. She can remember grandparents and cousins and gifts, cakes, their parents celebrating another year of enjoying being parents for ten years. Since… since Daniel had died, things had been different. Just… forced smiles, a card full of money and a promise that they wouldn’t be so busy next year or the year after… until all the years seemed to mould into one and Maddie couldn’t help but wonder if they would all… always feel so  _ stuck.  _ She had seen this coming, she had known her eleventh birthday would be the hardest. The first where her own age had surpassed her brother’s. She just hadn’t expected to wake up to just her and Evan in the house, a card and some money, with an apology that they had to go to work. On a Sunday. They never worked on a Sunday. 

“I-I’m not…” She doesn’t get to finish her sentence when he’s throwing himself on her bed and wrapping both of his arms around her, his own eyes shimmering with tears when he tilts his head to look up at her. 

There’s a sad smile on her face when she presses a soft kiss to the top of his head, remembering when her mother had always used to do the same to her. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d shown her such affection, other than the odd, gentle pat on her shoulder or some nights, she’d brush her hair and it was the closest Maddie felt to the woman until the moment was gone and she’d get that look in her eyes again, as though the last thing in the world she wanted was to be near either of them. “Why are you always so sad, Maddie?” 

His voice is barely a whisper, forcing the tears to come spilling as she shakes her head, “Oh, Evan, how can I be sad when I have the best little brother in the world?” She wraps an arm around him, pulling him as close as she can as she sniffs, wishing she could tell him the truth. But she’d made a promise, a promise she loathed more than anything. She takes a breath, “I had a friend like you, once,” It’s not a lie, Daniel had been her friend  _ and _ her brother, “you remind me of him so much. It makes me happy. You make me happy.” 

“Promise?” His little finger lifts up and she’s quick to wrap her own finger around his, with a smile on her lips and a nod of her head. 

“I promise, Evan.” 

.

Maddie is sixteen when her little brother reaches the milestone that Daniel had never gotten. She had tried to hide her anger when her parents had announced they were going on a weekend break together, in the knowledge that they would miss their son’s eleventh birthday, as though they were somehow punishing Maddie and Evan for living, for… growing, for…  _ being.  _ It wasn’t hard to miss the hurt on his face, as though somehow, after a lifetime of disappointment, he had expected differently. As though every single birthday wasn’t going to end like the last. It’s not his fault that he was born on the same date that Daniel died. It wasn’t his fault that a fire had raged through their family home the night of his second birthday. It wasn’t his fault that Daniel had ran back into the family home after carrying Evan out whilst her dad had held her, to rescue their dog. It was as much his fault as it was hers, which sometimes, in the eyes of her parents, she feels as though it was. 

It’s hard because the older she gets, the more she forgets. She tries to remember, she clings to the one photograph she was allowed to keep of him and she looks at Evan and remembers Daniel in him but now he’s going to surpass him and Daniel would always be ten. He’d always look how Evan looked  _ now _ and now… now it felt like Evan could finally be his own person and Maddie hoped, especially as she was leaving home for college in two years, their parents would stop comparing him and see him as  _ Evan.  _

She forces a smile when he walks down the stairs, sleep in his eyes and his blonde curls a mess, before his blue eyes settle on the breakfast feast she had made for him. “Happy Birthday!” Her arms outstretch and she grins at him and he looks at her with a shocked look on his face, until he comes running over to her and both of his arms wrap tightly around her waist, causing her to stumble back before she wraps her arms around him. He’s only eleven and he’s already an inch taller than her and she feels safe in his arms, hiding her face in his shoulder before the tears start to fall, the moment the overwhelming guilt hits her.

It’s been nine years; is she allowed to be happy? Would Daniel  _ want _ this? She’d like to think so, but her parents make her doubt even herself and the brother she can barely remember. “W-why are you crying?” 

She forces herself to pull back, cupping his face in her hands as she scrunches up her nose and forces a smile onto her face. Maddie’s mouth opens to tell him the truth, to tell him why their parents weren’t there today and why it felt as though they had never been present before. But she sees the pain in his eyes as he searches hers and the way his bottom lip trembles and she remembers her promise. Instead, she lets out a sad laugh, “I just can’t believe how grown up you are. Go eat your bacon before it goes cold.” 

He doesn’t seem convinced, a frown on his lips before she pushes him gently towards the table, “I’ll let you open your gift now if you give me a smile.” That does it, and her heart feels a little lighter when he grins at her and lifts his little finger up, wrapping her finger around his when their eyes meet. 

.

“They can’t do this!” 

Maddie angrily wipes at the tears that fall down her face, grabbing both of her brother’s hands in her own in an attempt to get him to look at her and not at their parents behind her. She hates that she has to leave him behind, she hates that he’s going to be alone with them for at least the next three years of his life. She feels the way his fingers clench around her engagement ring, his eyes burning with rage and his cheeks flush. He bites down on his lip, hard, in an attempt to stop the tears from falling when his eyes dart from her, to Doug and then to their parents. 

“Why don’t you love us?” The question is aimed at the two adults behind them and she can hear the audible gasp from her mother as though it’s a surprise that he would think, for even a second, that they didn’t love them. She’s sure they do, deep down, maybe in their own way. They raised them, they had to feel  _ something _ for them, right? Their love didn’t just… die the day Daniel died, it couldn’t have just… disappeared. 

But then she’s looking up at the man who she’s been dating for just over a year, the man who had asked her to be his wife a few days before and she sees more love in those eyes than she ever has in her parents. “They can’t just disown you, Maddie. They can’t--they can’t take you away from me.” 

Her head shakes with ferocity, forcing her hands from hers so she can take his face in her hands, cupping his cheeks gently as she looks up, eyes full of determination. “ _ They  _ don’t want anything to do with me, Evan, I still want everything to do with you, do you understand?” Just because her parents have decided that her decision to marry a man they don’t like is worthy of cutting her off, it doesn’t mean she will just abandon Evan. It does nothing to alleviate the anger in her brother’s face but she does feel him relax beneath her touch. He hasn’t made it a secret that he doesn’t like the man she’s choosing to spend the rest of her life with, either, but at least he promises her that he will stand by her decisions. 

Their parents hadn’t offered her the same kindness, and it feels as though they were just waiting for any opportunity to get rid of her. Her first mistake, her first refusal to do what she’s told and there she is, being told they want nothing to do with her or with her husband-to-be. She shouldn’t be surprised but it still causes a horrific pain to pulsate through her when she realises that the parents she briefly remembers were too wrapped up in their own grief and devastation of what happened that fateful night to ever see past it. At least, she finds solace in the fact that they still love each other and now she knows how being in love feels, it’s a comfort to know that through it all, they’ve always had each other. 

They’re good people, they deserve good things, she tells herself but they’re bad parents. Bad parents consumed by a longing and a devastation that she’s never been allowed to understand. She almost opens her mouth and spills the Buckley family secret there and then just to spite them, but she’s staring at her broken brother and she knows she can’t do it to him. “They can’t do this.” He whispers, his own hands moving to cup her face whilst Doug places a hand on her lower back and she feels the warmth of both of their love healing the cracks her parents had caused. 

“You are welcome in our home anytime, Evan, right, Doug?” She misses the way his eyes darken before he nods his head in agreement and extends his hand to shake her brother’s, with a spoken promise that he’d look after her. It’s the last time she ever steps foot inside the home she had lived in for the eleven years before college and the last time she’s tempted to utter her other brother’s name. 

. 

“Maddie? Maddie. Who-who is this?” 

Her hand drops to her stomach, feeling the gentle kicks of her daughter as she holds back the tears. She’s exhausted from the last few days, the weight of a twenty-nine year promise and a thirty-one year secret finally feeling too heavy on her shoulders. She hadn’t uttered his name out loud until a few days ago, standing in this very apartment and looking at the man who loves her and who will love their daughter unconditionally. 

Maddie feels as though she should have known this would happen eventually, that all those times she had stopped herself would accumulate in this very moment, staring into the eyes of her confused brother as he holds the only photographic proof she had that Daniel ever existed. “That’s Daniel.” She murmurs, the name feeling foreign on her lips before she tries to numb herself to the pain she’s felt for over thirty years, to the secret she wishes they never had to keep in the first place and to the promise she never should have agreed to and they never should have asked her to. “He died.” 

The confusion only grows on his face and she remembers why her parents had thought this was a promise best kept between the only people who remembered him. Daniel loved Evan so, so much and Evan had adored him for the two short years he got him. It’s not fair, none of this is far but she holds back her tears as she tries to focus on her living brother, who’s been in the dark for so long. She had thought she was protecting him but… seeing his pain, seeing his anger despite it all. Maddie just wishes her parents had been the one to sit him down and explain to him why they couldn’t tell him, why they couldn’t talk about Daniel, why they could never bring themselves to  _ feel _ that pain and that grief. 

“He was our brother.” 

And just like that, a weight has been lifted, replaced instead by the guilt of putting some of that weight on Buck’s shoulders when the realisation hits. 


End file.
